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Sunday, December 29, 2013

Feedback is crucial in
development. Feedback improves your skills if given or taken properly. It also helps us to make ourselves aware
about our unknown self and reduce the blind spot. However feedback is always
considered as critical. The person receiving the feedback does not like it,
most of the times. However if it is given in proper way, it definitely helps to
improve and can be taken as development area. During giving the feedback, you
should not target the person, but his behavior. Receiver should get it as a
support and help and he should sense your genuine interest in supporting the person.
It should not be the criticism.

It should not be like GSM. Yes. GSM

G:Nogeneralized
feedback.

Feedback
should not be generalized. It should be specific and you should mentioned the
event based on you would are giving the feedback. While receiving the feedback,
insist on the event, occasion, based on feedback is being given.

S:No sensational feedback.

Feedback is
for the improvement. You should not attach the sentiments to the feedback. If
you do this, receiver may take it as a personal. While giving feedback, your
intention should be clear. But it is upto the receiver how he takes. He should
not feel offended and hence it should not be dramatic, however it can be
sensitive.

M: No meaningless feedback.

Feedback
should have some credibility. There are people who just give the feedback for
the sake of giving feedback. Feedback should be supported with concrete
examples. You should also see the benefits into it. If the behavior change doesn’t
matter much to the person or the organization, why he would take it. Hence
feedback should show some long term benefits to the person.

Person should
think that feedback he received is reward for him and not his reproach.

At the end of this year, take out this
GSM from your mind and let’s make 2014 more positive, healthy and useful to the
people, employees, relatives & friends by giving feedback as a reward.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Once upon a
time, a young wife named Rama Devi was at her wit's end. Her husband had always
been a tender and loving soulmate before he had left for the wars but, ever
since he returned home, he was cross, angry, and unpredictable. She was almost
afraid to live with her own husband. Only in glancing moments did she catch a
shadow of the husband she used to know and love.

When one
ailment or another bothered people in her village, they would often rush for a
cure to a hermit who lived deep in the mountains. Not Rama Devi. She always
prided herself that she could heal her own troubles. But this time was
different. She was desperate.

As Rama Devi
approached the hermit's hut, she saw the door was open. The old man said
without turning around: "I hear you. What's your problem?"

She explained
the situation. His back still to her, he said, "Ah yes, it's often that
way when soldiers return from the war. What do you expect me to do about
it?"

"Make me
a potion!" cried the young wife. "Or an amulet, a drink, whatever it
takes to get my husband back the way he used to be."

The old man
turned around. "Young woman, your request doesn't exactly fall into the
same category as a broken bone or ear infection."

"I
know", said she.

"It will
take three days before I can even look into it. Come back then."

Three days
later, Rama Devi returned to the hermit's hut. "Rama Devi", he
greeted her with a smile, "I have good news. There is a potion that will
restore your husband to the way he used to be, but you should know that it
requires an unusual ingredient. You must bring me a whisker from a live
tiger."

"What?"
she gasped. "Such a thing is impossible!"

"I
cannot make the potion without it!" he shouted, startling her. He turned
his back. "There is nothing more to say. As you can see, I'm very
busy."

That night Rama
Devi tossed and turned. How could she get a whisker from a live tiger?

The next day
before dawn, she crept out of the house with a bowl of rice covered with meat
sauce. She went to a cave on the mountainside where a tiger was known to live.
She clicked her tongue very softly as she crept up, her heart pounding, and
carefully set the bowl on the grass. Then, trying to make as little noise as
she could, she backed away.

The next day
before dawn, she took another bowl of rice covered with meat sauce to the cave.
She approached the same spot, clicking softly with her tongue. She saw that the
bowl was empty, replaced the empty one with a fresh one, and again left,
clicking softly and trying not to break twigs or rustle leaves, or do anything
else to startle and unsettle the wild beast.

So it went,
day after day, for several months. She never saw the tiger (thank goodness for
that! she thought) though she knew from footprints on the ground that the tiger
- and not a smaller mountain creature - had been eating her food. Then one day
as she approached, she noticed the tiger's head poking out of its cave.
Glancing downward, she stepped very carefully to the same spot and with as
little noise as she could, set down the fresh bowl and, her heart pounding, picked
up the one that was empty.

After a few
weeks, she noticed the tiger would come out of its cave as it heard her
footsteps, though it stayed a distance away (again, thank goodness! she
thought, though she knew that someday, in order to get the whisker, she'd have
to come closer to it).

Another month
went by. Then the tiger would wait by the empty food bowl as it heard her
approaching. As she picked up the old bowl and replaced it with a fresh one,
she could smell its scent, as it could surely smell hers.

"Actually",
she thought, remembering its almost playful look as she set down a fresh bowl,
"it is a rather friendly creature, when you get to know it." The next
time she visited, she glanced up at the tiger briefly and noticed what a lovely
downturn of reddish fur it had from over one of its eyebrows to the next. Not a
week later, the tiger allowed her to gently rub its head, and it purred and
stretched like a house cat.

Then she knew
the time had come. The next morning, very early, she brought with her a small
knife. After she set down the fresh bowl and the tiger allowed her to pet its
head, she said in a low voice: "Oh, my tiger, may I please have just one
of your whiskers?" While petting the tiger with one hand, she held one
whisker at its base and, with the other hand, in one quick stroke, she carved
the whisker off. She stood up, speaking softly her thanks, and left, for the
last time.

The next
morning seemed endless. At last her husband left for the rice fields. She ran
to the hermit's hut, clutching the precious whisker in her fist. Bursting in,
she cried to the hermit: "I have it! I have the tiger's whisker!"

"You
don't say?" he said, turning around. "From a live tiger?"

"Yes!"
she said.

"Tell
me", said the hermit, interested. "How did you do it?"

Rama Devi
told the hermit how, for the last six months, she had earned the trust of the
creature and it had finally permitted her to cut off one of its whiskers. With
pride she handed him the whisker. The hermit examined it, satisfied himself
that it was indeed a whisker from a live tiger, then flicked it into the fire
where it sizzled and burned in an instant.

"Rama",
the hermit said softly, "you no longer need the whisker. Tell me, is a man
more vicious than a tiger? If a dangerous wild beast will respond to your
gradual and patient care, do you think a man will respond any less
willingly?"

Rama Devi
stood speechless. Then she turned and stepped down the trail, turning over in
her mind images of the tiger and of her husband, back and forth. She knew what
she could do.

Monday, December 16, 2013

During my
school days, Once, I was travelling with my teacher to the nearby district city
for attending scholarship examination. It was almost 40-50 km travel by state
transport (ST) bus. My teacher had taken the responsibility to guide us in preparations
& to take us at the examination center. He took extra efforts on us for
this exam.

Anyway, the
bus was fully crowded. The conductor of the bus got irritated with people. This
was his daily job to handle passengers mostly from villages, sometimes
passengers without tickets.

Conductor
gets a sigh of relief after all passengers settle. My teachers leans towards
the conductor and starts the conversation…

“It must be
difficult to manage such crowd.”

“Yes, but
what to do, this is the life for me.” Conductor responded.

“I must tell
you; you are doing a great job, it is very difficult to handle this big crowd. It
is very difficult job. After all, you also have to prepare the accurate account
statement and reconcile your ticket sell. Though this is your routine job, you
do it well. I appreciate you. ”

Conversation
continued, however I decided to take a nap.

After getting
down, I gave my unwarranted feedback to the teacher, “Sir, you were speaking with
the conductor and I heard you were appreciating him. I thought, what he is
doing is his job, what’s great in it?”

“Yes child,
but you see the difference after that. He pull the bell to stop the bus at next
stop, somebody at that stop must have needed to get in the bus to reach the
office on time; he helped one old lady to get in the bus; next to that he was
cool and cracking some jokes. His gestures has resulted into the chain of
reaction, positive reactions. The person who needed to reach office on time
will be on time in office, his boss would be happy. That old lady would be be
happy. The atmosphere in the bus was happy. Further it must have positive
impact on all. Just imagine the next positive reactions of people….”

“We should
not forget the small gestures. I have not spend anything, only few words for
appreciating that conductor, but I made his day, he made others’ day… see the
difference” he continued.

In our
traditional culture, we don’t appreciate frequently. Even in families and
relations, we just ignore this appreciation. Our families do lot many things
for us; they live for us, however we never say “thanks you” to them. If you drop something
on the floor and somebody helps you to get it back, we mechanically say,
“thanks, thank you” to that somebody, who may be the stranger.

However your
wife daily makes food for you, give everything to you when you drop something,
you would not say thanks to her. Parents give your everything, they work hard
so that you get good education and be on your own in your future life, you
don’t appreciate their efforts. Your children bring happiness in your life,
still you don’t say, thanks to them.

We just
assume that that is their duty. What’s the big deal in that. Not necessary you
have to say it verbally, however do we recognize them through some gestures?

Appreciation
has its own power.

Appreciation
has different meanings. Commonly it means recognition.

Dictionary
meaning of appreciation is “recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of
someone or something.”

Another
dictionary meaning of appreciation means,
“increase in monetary value.”

And both
meanings are interrelated. By giving appreciation, you recognize good
qualities, but you also increase value in relationship. It may not give the
monetary benefits, but creates more value in relationships which has worth than
monitory benefits.

Everyone wants to feel appreciated and everyone values a
simple ‘thank you,’. This doesn't happen enough in the workplace or in families,
but showing simple forms of appreciation can really go a long way in motivating
people to work harder and be more productive.

“As we express
our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to
utter words, but to live by them”. JKF Kennedy.

Saturday, December 07, 2013

Employability is the major
issue in today’s world. There are (management & engineering) colleges which
are below average quality. Students coming from those colleges have to struggle
to get the jobs. If the student is struggler and has the fighting spirit, he
may get the job. He then can build his career on this. However in those
colleges, there are few students who really want to learn. Those few students are talented,
good and really are in search of good opportunities. (Talented means, a
recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively
applied. When they get the opportunity,
they value the job.) Unfortunately Industries tend to pick candidates from
reputed institutes which is not wrong, but there is no point hiring the
candidate from reputed institute with big cost for shop floor routine job and
keeping the guy for only doing the routine job. I personally feel that these
students should be really challenged and should be rotated through different functions
and finally put them result oriented high level tasks. You really come to know
the capabilities of the candidate.

Students from
Tier 1 schools, in particular, are definitely more prepared, but when you talk
about value for the money, and you talk about value per unit of money spent on
a particular candidate or the efficiency level per unit of the money spent on a
candidate, there is no major difference if you compare it other schools. When a
new MBA comes in from one of the top institutes, “he has bought some level of
premium tag”, but that does not mean this candidate will have the most or best
practical knowledge.

Jobs like supervisor,
regular maintenance, logistics, , QA,
regular production etc. where, there are routine jobs as per the standard operating
procedures do not demand high level intelligence. however, they do require
greater frustration tolerance, personal discipline, organization, management,
and interpersonal skills than were required two decades and more ago. These are
precisely the skills that many of the young people, who are in business schools
today, as opposed to two decades ago, lack.

India’s
school and university-based education system doesn’t equip you with skills that
employers look for. While Indian graduates know something about the
theoretical aspects, they lack domain skills, communication and professional
(employability) skills. (see the exhibit) Curriculum and pedagogy at
teaching institutions are increasingly being set by people who do not
understand what companies want. Most of the times, teachers’ quality is the
major issues. Those teachers are the people, who fail to get good industrial
and professional jobs. As the last option the teaching profession is accepted. There
is not such passion of teaching.

Even the
attitude of students is different. They spend big money for getting the degree
certificate, sometimes they even don’t know why they are doing the particular
degree. Their expectations is if they are spending such amount they would get
the highly paid job with air-conditioned office. Third class management institutes
made this totally business case to earn the money without any value addition.

Institutes
should focus on following areas while preparing their students for industries.
Otherwise all those institutes will perish one day.

Skills : Skill is the how part of the task and
job. It is also capabilities that can be transferred from one person to another.
This can be actually done by aligning with industries. Institutes need to take
efforts to reach out to industries, understand the expectations and prepare the
curriculum accordingly.

Knowledge: It is ‘what
you are aware of ..Factual ( things
you know) Can & should be taught.Experiential
(understandings you have picked up along the way). Less Tangible and therefor
much harder to teach

Talent: Recurring
patterns of thought feeling behavior, that carve individual minds. If someone does not have the talent
as part of his filter , then very difficult for others to inject it.

Now just look
how many candidates have above capabilities. I think there is a long way to
reach the goal.

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Peter Drucker once stated, “The Future arrived when we weren't looking, so
we’re still dealing with issues, ideas and programs that don’t fit the world’s
new realities.”

We are still in the era of economic
crisis. Growth expected is normal and not like what was there earlier. The challenge for business leaders is
to create growth opportunities that far outstrip the potential of the global economy.
All Business Leaders and functional managers
will have to think and act very differently -- the differences between “fast
growth” which we witnessed in past and
“new era of business” conditions are not inconsequential.

HR trends are not also isolated from such changes. We need to think
differently. We should change the way we are working today. The issue today is
not the talent, you advertise the vacancy, you will get hundreds of CV in your
inbox. The issues is for RIGHT talent, Right talent which grows the business.
And this is also applicable to all HR practices.

Some trends I see in following years are as under.

HR Business Partnership:

Please read my earlier post on this on this link http://vinodtbidwaik.blogspot.sg/2012/08/are-you-hr-professionals-partnering.html.
HR professionals are expected to play the role of business partner. Every
HR person should ask the question how his role or the function aligned to the
number decided by the top management. How they can relate the consequences,
impact of the actions of HR function on the overall business. Question is not
related to the cost control, but how HR play the role to optimize the
productivity, engagement and people cost, how people are aligned towards the
organizational goals. HR professional are consultants for the business leaders
and functional leaders on their people issues. HR is expected to play the role
of Coach to managers on people issues.

Leaders Readiness and
maturity for the new economic era:

How we are going to measure the readiness of leaders to new change, adapt
and create new growth. This is not an easy task. It is easy to understand that
outsized performance in an easy growth era will not automatically transfer the
new economic era. Business leaders role here with the support of HR is raising
awareness and providing clarity around changing expectations and supporting to
create the right matrix for the growth.

At the other side, how our leaders are enough matured to come out from
their conventional thinking and think the business in different perspective is
also important. leadership maturity is an individual’s ability to operate
effectively at the appropriate level of complexity, ambiguity and scale. HR is
expected to act as a Coach, if required arrange development plan for leaders if
required to cope up with the situation.
Leaders are those who come out from the comfort zone, challenge the
status quo and operate in disruptive, turbulent and volatile market or
situation with speed.

Off course HR is expected to identify issues, development needs and act
proactively to take the leadership at next level.

(RE)emergence of Industrial Relations Role:

You must have notice the turbulence in Industrial Relations during last
few months. (Strike in Bajaj Auto Ltd, Murder of Maruti Manesar plant HR head
etc.) Maintaining good Industrial
Relations is crucial now a days. Employee expectations are increasing day by
day. They don’t have the moderate expectations. Due to speed, insecurity and
fear, workmen are again coming together to go aggressive on their demands.
Impact on the business is critical.

In such situation, IR role again has been (re) emerged as the important
role. HR professional will have to update themselves on the trends in IR, keep
an eye on the behaviour of workmen and roll out the IR risk assessment and
mitigation plans.

No more (more) fresher:

We have also
seen the mass recruitment in past. Recruitment from college campuses was common,
the placements will still be there, but not for all. There are so many (engineering and management) colleges are shutting their shops due to
less response from the industries for the placement. The main issue is
employability skills of these students. Industries will be very choosy to recruit the candidates from colleges.

Offloading HR transactional jobs:

If you are
good in payroll, attendance, other HR operational jobs, better you upgrade your
skills as a HR expert or HR generalist or HR business Partner. Most of the
companies are eliminating HR transactional jobs and such jobs are outsourced to
optimize the cost. Still you will be employed, but your growth will remain
restricted.

More focus on building organizational
capabilities (training & development):

“
Organizational Capability is a business’s ability to establish internal
structures and processes that influence its members to create
organization-specific competencies and thus enable the business to adapt to
changing customer and strategic needs”. (D. Ulrich & D. Lake (1990).
Organizational Capability).

What D.
Ulrich & D Lake told in 1990 is still relevant. Perhaps the focus was still
missing and people miss the opportunities. Now this has to be continued. Identifying
and building right capabilities is the first priority to HR.

There are
certain issues with talent, one of the issues is RIGHT talent, another is their
skills and competencies suitable with your company. You will not get the apple
to backfill the apple. You have to hire good oranges. To convert them into apple, companies have to
continue the focus on training and development of their staff.

More focus on OD and Culture Change
initiatives:

The business
scenario is changing. Organizations have to tune their cultural bandwidth with
the changing scenario. Management is expecting (from HR) steering more organizational development initiatives.
It is not the expert role now, you can still hire the consultants, but first
stage, HR is expected to diagnose and act on the plan and devise the HR
strategy. HR will have to play the role of deployment leaders of new initiates
and measure the success of such initiatives.

Recruitment through job referrals,
networking & online platforms:

Recruitment
(placement) agencies are now outdated. Everybody have the job portals with
them. More jobs will be filled through internal job postings, referrals and
through professional & social sites. Companies are tracking the candidates
through LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo, Twitter etc. now a days virtual presence is
must.

Focus on HR technology and tools and
reduce HR FTEs:

Instead of relying on person, companies are automating
their HR processes. Everything is online, If you don't swap your card, you get
the sms intimating the same, your training history is online, your appraisals
are online. Managers are not expected to go to HR for small issues. Managers
will have their control on their team through Managers Self Service and
Employee Self Service. HR is only here to advise and consult. No paper work and
bureaucracy, however more face to face discussion is expected.

Focus on Ethics, Code of Business Conduct
and corporate governance.:

Companies are
looking for sustainability and trust for shareholders. To build this, companies
are advocating work ethics, code of business conduct and corporate
governance. HR is expected to train
their employees on value system, ethics and create the positive work culture to
foster the same. There is lot of awareness among the people about the same and
they expect that they are well treated, respected, valued and follow the work
ethics.

No hefty Compensation, but benefits can
be more:

Today, there
is no differentiation between Software
Engineer working in IT industry and Production Engineer working in
Manufacturing industry. Compensation
percentile and compa ratios may be different in different segments, but there
is not big gaps. Only compensation is also not the differentiation factor.
There are no heavy increments unlike in past. You may hardly receive 8-10%
increase in coming years. However right employees will be rewarded. They will
get more salaries.

HR Demographics and HR analytics

Do you know
what is the employee cost against the revenue & sales? What is the contribution
margin of the product? How HR cost has the impact on the product? DO we know
the demography of our employee. How HR cost are trending and making the
business impact? HR is expected to work on HR analytics and demography not only
understand what that is, but to understand the business impact, analysis and
make HR plans. HR
demographics help you to devise your customized HR strategy. This is the
continual change and we should sense that….

“Change is the law of life, and those
who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” John F.
Kennedy. Let’s not miss the future.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Tarun
Tejpal and his Tehelka is always in a news, however this time, they are in news
for all wrong reasons. This is the case of workplace harassment and not only
the harassment, but sexual harassment. It is also the case of intimidation and
the example of how the women are unsafe in media. This is also the case of
power and abuse of power where women are soft targets. This is also the example
of how media companies who is the strong pillar of the democracy manipulate the
law for their own benefits. The Managing Editor of Tehelka has tried to save
the skin of Tejpal by not reporting this case properly. She was also unable to
give the justice to the victim.

Recently the
new Law (Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013) has been enacted with the objective of providing protection to women
against sexual harassment at the workplace and for the prevention and redressal
Sexual harassment is considered as a violation of the fundamental right of a
woman to equality as guaranteed under Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution of
India ("Constitution") and her right to life and to live with dignity
as per Article 21 of the Constitution. It is also considered as a violation of
a right to practice or to carry out any occupation, trade or business under
Article 19(1) (g) of the Constitution, which includes a right to a safe
environment free from harassment.

Surprisingly
the internal aniti-sexual harassment committee (internal complaint committee) was also not established in the organization to address the issue. There are so many companies which failed to constitute
such committee in their organization. This also shows the attitude of the
employer towards women issues.

Let’s look
what this Law is for?

What constitutes sexual harassment at workplace?

Following
are main factors which constitutes sexual harassment,

Circumstances of
promise (implied or explicit) of preferential treatment in employment;

Threat of
detrimental treatment in employment;

Threat about
employment (present or future);

Creating an
intimidating or offensive or hostile work environment, or interference With
work for the above;

Humiliating
treatment that may affect the lady employee's health or safety

In above
case somebody may defend that the incident happened in the hotel and it is not
the workplace harassment, however as per the Law “workplace” includes any place
visited by the employee arising out of or during the course of employment
including transportation provided by the employer for undertaking such journey.
Therefore as per this definition eve employer such as office of clients, taxis,
hotels etc… become a workplace. Therefore, during an official tour the place of
stay (i.e. hotel), travel mode (i.e. taxi) and office of customers / clients
are all included as workplace and the employer is liable if any incident
happens with the woman employee.

Employer
obligation is provide the safe and harassment free working place to the employee.
This also includes to protect the
employee from the accused. Forming the internal complaint committee and informing the issues to legal authorities is
also on the employer.

There are lot many cases, perhaps most of the cases
are kept under the carpet. Most of the times, such cases are not reported. It
the easy way to victim to change the job or keep silence, instead of taking it to the proper
forum due to the insensitivity of authorities.

Companies should come forward to
protect women employees and provide them the safe workplace. At least now they can implement the new enacted Law. Labour Office should enforce the implementation of the Law in all companies.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

In the last
blog, I have given the analysis of personalities and their interaction,
communication style of Bigg Boss, participants. This blog has got almost 500
hits in a day and there were different comments. I had to delete few of
comments because of abusive language. This is also funny, how people respond,
when something goes different from their expectations. I wanted to put the
exact point of this theory here. I thought to explain what this theory is and
how it works in our day to day life.

Transactional
analysis or TA is a branch of psychotherapy developed by Eric Berne. His definition of it is “a theory of
personality and a systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and change”. Based on this theory Thomas Anthony Harris had written a beautiful self-help book, “I am OK, You are OK.” It is about how people interact with each other especially which ego state of the person is interacting with which ego state.

Knowing about TA can be very useful for improving our interaction/communication skills. TA is about how people are structured psychologically and is both a theory of communication and a theory of child development.

The attached presentation will help you to understand more about this theory and model…